The Scientist - USA (2019-12)

46 THE SCIENTIST | the-scientist.com

CHARMION CRUICKSHANK-QUINN

Application Scientist at Agilent

Technologies. Cruickshank-Quinn was a

research fellow at National Jewish Health

in Denver before becoming a postdoc and

then instructor at the University of Colorado

Anschutz Medical Campus. Her background

is in mass spectrometry, transcriptomics,

and metabolomics as it relates to lung

disease research.

KIM KAMDAR

Managing Partner at Domain Associates, a

health care–focused venture fund that creates

and invests in biopharm, device, and diagnostic

companies. Kamdar began her career as a

scientist and pursued drug-discovery research

at Novartis/Syngenta for nine years.

THE JUDGES

H. STEVEN WILEY

Senior Research Scientist and Laboratory

Fellow at Pacifi c Northwest National

Laboratory. Wiley published some of the

earliest computer models of receptor

regulation and is known for developing a

variety of quantitative biochemical and

optical assays as a basis for validating

computational models of cell processes.

Editor’s Note: The judges considered dozens of entries submitted for a variety of life­

science products by companies and users. The judging panel evaluated submissions with

only basic instructions from The Scientist, and its members were invited to participate

based on their familiarity with life­science tools and technologies. They have no fi nancial

ties to the products or companies involved in the competition. In this issue of The

Scientist, any advertisements placed by winners named in this article were purchased

after our independent judges selected the winning products and had no bearing on the

outcome of the competition.

Horizon

Discovery

Edit-R all-in-

one lentiviral

sgRNA

Horizon Discovery is back among the

To p 10 Innovations this year with another

CRISPR product—the Edit-R all-in-one

lentiviral sgRNA. The company won a spot

in last year’s To p 10 with an mRNA that codes

for the DNA-cutting nuclease Cas9, while

this year’s winning invention combines the

sequences for Cas9 and the single guide

RNA (sgRNA) that leads the enzyme to the

appropriate spot in the genome, all pack-

aged into a viral vector.

Horizon off ers predesigned guide RNAs

to knock out any gene in the human, mouse,

or rat genomes. If users work on any one of

40 other species, they

can get custom-made

reagents. “Enter in

the species, the gene

of interest, where

you want the guide

to edit, and we pack-

age it into the all-in-one

vector,” says Ryan Donnelly,

the product manager for the gene editing

portfolio at Horizon. He says the company

designed the algorithm that builds the guide

RNAs not just to make cuts effi ciently, but to

reliably knock out specifi c genes in doing so.

Since the product came out in

November 2018, Donnelly says,

customers have pri-

marily used it to

validate a few

genes of inter-

est from larger

functional

screens or for

quick proof-of-

principle tests

to check if a gene is involved in a particular

phenotype they’re studying. (The company did

not provide a user to comment by deadline.)

Prices range from $500 to $1,000, depend-

ing on whether scientists select plasmids or

ready-to-use viral particles and off -the-shelf or

bespoke guide RNAs.

WILEY:“You pick the gene of interest, and

they supply the virus particles that will knock it

out at a very reasonable price. Only a single

selection step is required. Defi nitely could

greatly accelerate research in understanding

gene function in cells.”

Edit-R All-in-one Lentiviral sgRNA

U6

hEF1

mcMV

SMARTchoice

promoters